Matter manipulator compat

[RecursivePineapple]

I've moved all of the manipulator-specific code to its own mod, which can be found here.

Due to this, this PR will only contain GT5u-specific compat changes. From now on, I will update the mod's readme for behaviour changes and update this PR whenever I add new compat methods.

Until a better forum is available, I'll still use this PR for general discussion. Feel free to ping or DM me for clarification.

This PR doesn't change anything functionally, it only adds interfaces or methods where needed. Many machines only exposed their state through player interaction methods. It would've been very difficult to properly update a machine just by calling these methods.

Changes:

• Two meta IDs were allocated to the uplink multi and its hatch
• I kept a few useful util methods, but most were removed since they were fairly specialized and likely useless
• A mechanism for reading & setting the cover strong redstone output was added
• A method for setting the cable update delay was added, so that the manipulator could call it after updating cables
• A method for removing covers & returning their ItemStack in a single call was added
• A few methods for reading & setting tectech input parameters were added

[Divran]

Before any dev comes in and dislikes this PR I would just like to point out that this is basically schematica except actually good, and usable. Schematica is already in the pack, but it's just so shit that it's practically useless because it can't paste half the things you want it to, and the other half are pasted with the wrong orientations. The reason we use worldedit to copy/paste shit is specifically because schematica is garbage, but this tool would allow us to uninstall worldedit (or at least stop using it in case we need it for actual real admin purposes). Once this tool is finished, schematica could honestly just be deleted from the pack.

@RecursivePineapple If this is not merged for some weird reason, you should release it separately. I will 100% install and use it and no doubt so will many others

When dismantling a tank, any stored fluids will also be placed in fluid cells within the player's inventory. The ME network has a higher priority than the player's inventory, so blocks will be pulled from the inventory first and placed in the ME network first. If the player's inventory is full, the blocks will be dropped on the ground. Excess fluids will be voided.

in this case I also hope it places fluids into ae fluid storage first, before attempting to put them in the player's inventory

I will likely increase its storage or decrease its consumption, because building large shapes frequently empties it completely.

another solution would be to allow it to be charged at any speed via gt wireless chargers (of any tier). which it may already be able to do. so if you don't have enough power to place things, just make more wireless chargers

[boubou19]

looks good overall, but why putting effort into making it specially in GT rather than working on fixing schematica? I'm not opposed to this stuff, it looks very cool, but i'm curious. Fixing schematica would have allowed us to release it for the whole scene just not for NH. It kind of feel like a duplicate feature, so if this makes it in the pack i guess we will ditch schematica.

[Divran]

looks good overall, but why putting effort into making it specially in GT rather than working on fixing schematica? I'm not opposed to this stuff, it looks very cool, but i'm curious. Fixing schematica would have allowed us to release it for the whole scene just not for NH. It kind of feel like a duplicate feature, so if this makes it in the pack i guess we will ditch schematica.

I don't see a reason why this wouldn't work outside gtnh. the gtnh specific features most likely simply wouldn't be used in that case. could even have a simple check during launch to see if gregtech is installed and if it isn't, it could switch to using RF power instead, for example.

[boubou19]

We don't support our GT5U outside of NH.

[RecursivePineapple]

@Divran

in this case I also hope it places fluids into ae fluid storage first, before attempting to put them in the player's inventory

Yes, that's what it does. It only places stuff in the player's inventory if it can't place it in their AE system. Looks like I forgot to mention that.

another solution would be to allow it to be charged at any speed via gt wireless chargers

Wireless chargers work well with it, but it's somewhat slow even with fast charging enabled. I think I'll probably just make the distance curve less harsh (^1.25 or something), because that's what consumes most of the power. Chargers push power, so I can't do much on my end to increase the transfer speed.

@boubou19

why putting effort into making it specially in GT rather than working on fixing schematica

I'm just not a fan of schematica. It works, but it's quite tedious to use since you have to wait for block dependencies to finish and you have to move around the whole structure several times to build it. I figured there was a good reason for those behaviours so the thought didn't even cross my mind to improve it.
The BlockAnalyzer class is completely isolated, so once I get that code working it can be integrated into schematica if someone wants to (and fairly trivially, since its interface is only a few methods and its result will be serializable).

[RecursivePineapple]

New AE dismantling:

dismantle.ae.mp4

[Divran]

Wireless chargers work well with it, but it's somewhat slow even with fast charging enabled. I think I'll probably just make the distance curve less harsh (^1.25 or something), because that's what consumes most of the power. Chargers push power, so I can't do much on my end to increase the transfer speed.

yeah but did you check if having a shitload of wireless chargers at once makes it charge faster? or can only one wireless charger connect at a time?

[RecursivePineapple]

@Divran I can't load into a world to double check because gt5u's master branch has a problem, but from the code it looks multiple chargers can charge a player's tools at the same time

[ddelconte]

I really like this idea. In fact, I was looking for something like this as an alternative to schematica the other day to no avail. Well done and I look forward to this getting merged.

My only concern is that waiting until ZPM for this is a little too excessive, considering that schematica is available at all times. Perhaps add different tiers of the item but with restricted abilities (smaller volumes that it could work with, etc.) that can be obtained much earlier, perhaps even in LV/MV.

[Divran]

My only concern is that waiting until ZPM for this is a little too excessive, considering that schematica is available at all times. Perhaps add different tiers of the item but with restricted abilities (smaller volumes that it could work with, etc.) that can be obtained much earlier, perhaps even in LV/MV.

I think zpm should be ok since you don't really need any sort of machine spam before that. I wouldn't want to put it much later than that though. That said, I also definitely wouldn't be against having it earlier

[YannickMG]

Depending on what people want it for, you could consider unlocking specific functionality across several tiers.

For instance the very first model available might only be able to manipulate decoration blocks and not machines, and could gradually gain support for tile entities, inventories, liquid tanks and machine/AE2 configuration.

[ddelconte]

I think zpm should be ok since you don't really need any sort of machine spam before that. I wouldn't want to put it much later than that though. That said, I also definitely wouldn't be against having it earlier

Ay, but it does more than just machine spam. It's essentially an all in one build tool and when unlocked in LV could serve as a far superior alternative to the builder's wand, which is our only option at that point. If RecursivePineapple is into the idea of splitting it into tiers, then what Yannick suggested is probably closer to the most reasonable approach.

[RecursivePineapple]

Well done and I look forward to this getting merged.

@ddelconte Thanks!

you could consider unlocking specific functionality across several tiers.

I can see about making a T1 version that can only place basic blocks with a somewhat limited range (needs titanium), a T2 that can place tile entities, connect to AE, and disassemble with a larger range (needs osmium) and a T3 with everything unlocked (needs naq alloy).

when unlocked in LV could serve as a far superior alternative to the builder's wand, which is our only option at that point

If the T1 version is too late, I can make a T0 that requires an equal trade focus or a builders wand (or any other magic teleporter around LV/MV, maybe just enderpearls or something). It'd still be powered by EU and largely function the same, but it would be limited to a radius of 32 blocks with a buffer of ~1mil EU along with the T1 restrictions. To prevent it from becoming junk it can be used in an cheaper alternative T1 recipe. Each tier would require the previous tier as an ingredient, but T1 would have two recipes (one with the T0 and one without).

I want the series of items to be teleporter themed, so the 'first' one should include some sort of non-magical teleporter in the recipe. I don't mind the T0 not having a teleporter, but it shouldn't be the 'first' one, it should be more of a barely-working prototype lore-wise.

[ddelconte]

I think this is an excellent approach. A good T0/LV recipe could include field generators, emitters, steel plates, a small lithium battery, a builder's wand, and an enderman head (why not?). All instances of teleportation tech in the gregverse (at least, before the end game) rely on ender/nether technology to function (field generators, etc.), so I don't think you'd be violating the lore by incorporating them. Obviously, though, you'd want to make the recipe involved and not something they can just throw together quickly.

[YannickMG]

I'd suggest having the thing (at least T0) run on ender pearls somehow just to justify having an enderman stuck in a smeltery, but that might not be the right incentive.

[Divran]

random idea: add a feature to allow this tool to request the missing blocks (and/or items) from ae before pasting

basically add a button in your radial menu that does the same thing as ctrl-clicking a recipe in the terminal: opens request windows for one item at a time for any item you don't already have enough of. The user can then choose to press this button as many times as needed to request all the items before pasting

[RecursivePineapple]

@Divran I really like that idea. It'll need some sort of base station to request the items properly (so that I can put all of them in one crafting request), but I already planned on adding something similar.

[Divran]

@Divran I really like that idea. It'll need some sort of base station to request the items properly (so that I can put all of them in one crafting request), but I already planned on adding something similar.

it doesnt even really need to be one request. ctrl+clicking ingame right now will request one item at a time and that works fine. you can yoink the existing code for now and improve it later if you really want to merge it into one request

[Divran]

random idea that will probably be broken op and therefore not included. steal recursive blueprints from factorio. add a machine that can do everything your radial menu can, including requesting missing blocks, and allow it to paste itself. nothing can possibly go wrong with this, ever

[Divran]

random other idea: ability to replace all copies of selected block with another block. useful when upgrading mebf coils or borosilicate glass tiers. or especially dtpf coils since the wand swap upgrade thingy isn't able to replace blocks that aren't visible, and the dtpf has several coils which are not visible so they don't get replaced

[RecursivePineapple]

@Divran

add a machine that can do everything your radial menu can, including requesting missing blocks, and allow it to paste itself

That's a bit excessive IMO. Honestly, I don't even know what you'd use this for. I've been using the manipulator for real building and you don't even need to automate it. I was going to add arraying to the copy mode, but it's not even necessary because you can just make a row then copy it for each column.

ability to replace all copies of selected block with another block

I'll have to think about it some more. I want to add something similar to the equal trade focus, but I'm not sure what the best way to go about it is. It'd have to be functionally similar to the focus (ie right click -> blocks swapped without any other actions) but that could very easily lead to too many blocks getting changed.

[Divran]

That's a bit excessive IMO. Honestly, I don't even know what you'd use this for. I've been using the manipulator for real building and you don't even need to automate it. I was going to add arraying to the copy mode, but it's not even necessary because you can just make a row then copy it for each column.

yeah it was a joke suggestion

I'll have to think about it some more. I want to add something similar to the equal trade focus, but I'm not sure what the best way to go about it is. It'd have to be functionally similar to the focus (ie right click -> blocks swapped without any other actions) but that could very easily lead to too many blocks getting changed.

it doesnt have to be similar to the wand focus imo. you can just make it so you gotta select a cube first just like when you copy paste and then it will swap the selected block inside the cube. really the only 2 reasons I want this feature is A) more range, even at the expense of more eu cost. and B) ability to swap blocks that arent visible

the built-in ability to use items directly from ae would be a nice bonus as well. as would the ability to just press one button to start the swapping and then waiting for a minute or so for it to complete (as opposed to the wand focus where you have to fly around and click a ton of places to complete the swap, and also you have to manually swap hidden blocks as already mentioned)

[RecursivePineapple]

@chochem

why is this adding a metaitem4? that seems very unnecessary.

When I made meta item 4 I thought all of the previous IDs were taken up because all three ID enums ended at the max (who thought that picking those would be a good idea?). When I went back later and looked again, I noticed that there are hundreds of free IDs in the middle :pensib:. Either way, it was helpful for migrating the items so in hindsight I don't think it was a big issue but I won't be making that mistake again.

why are the recipes not starting in zpm like the pr description says? this is very much high tier technology.

Originally the tool had one tier in ZPM, but I later expanded that to HV, IV, LuV, and ZPM without updating the PR description. Everything's up to date now. I'm not sure what the final tiering should be, but I feel like it's in a good spot currently (see here for more details). I had to do lots of manual building before those tiers, so I don't think it's providing the solution before the problem.

PR changed a lot and description was adjusted. balance still looks like a big open question, but this is no longer the place for that.